Maayan Nidam has a deep history in production and boasts an impressive back-catalog that includes records for the likes of Raum…musik, Perlon, Freak n’ Chic and Cadenza. She’s also well regarded for her genre bending sets at the likes of Chalet or Club der Visionäre and is an avid believer in changing things up. She’s been relatively quiet release-wise lately but spent the first chunk of the year touring (including an album tour in Japan with Satoshi Tomiie) and has been in the studio ever since, working on solo material and a live show that we hope to see in 2016. We had a friendly and enlightening chat about all sorts, from her current work and collaborative efforts to her insightful thoughts on freedom of speech and attitudes toward women in the scene.
To start, her work as The Kicks with Alex Picone is probably the most relevant of her recent efforts. It began when she started to branch out three or four years ago, having become a little tired of constantly hearing the same music coupled with a growing desire to create something more colourful. It started with Alex where they played in everything live and, while it was still very house oriented, their takes were recorded directly to tape. She’s found that working with others is quite freeing compared to the solo work with her machines, and that it’s a different process she finds open and exciting. In her eyes, the magic lies in the band-like process where everyone only does one thing, making everything more colourful and depthless in its variety.
The creative process when it comes to her solo work is quite different and does require a little more control. She tends to re-create her studio in its entirety over the course of a week before recording, connecting machines in different ways to let them control each other via MIDI and CV. Once complete, all that needs to be done is press play on one machine to set the pre-defined commands and sequences running and record the output of this quirky domino effect. She tries to set it up in a way that’s most likely to get something new and exciting, and spends her time coming up with ideas of how to connect things in an interesting way or make alterations that will start chain reactions:
“I create the studio and the studio creates the music so there’s really not much for me to do, just sit back and see what comes out of it”
Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t but regardless she’s found a home for her music with a select number of labels. What makes a label special she tells me is that it can’t just be business, that it’s important to work with people that you know personally and that you like them as people with whom you can hang out with. They must be interested in artistic development and it’s crucial that they also have to be diversifying and growing as well.
We begin to speak a little about the changing face of the Berlin nightlife and the tightening rules and regulations surrounding it. The sudden closure of Stattbad (a mystery that neither of us are clear on) and club tourism take command of the conversation. With tourism comes responsibility and more rules for everyone to abide by, a stark contrast to the Berlin of 15 years ago which boasted little else but the ability to party anywhere 24/7. She believes that instead of enjoying the tourism and money that’s already being spilled into the city, the regulators are trying to squeeze as much out of the clubs as possible.
Fortunately, Berlin is always changing. She points out that the minute something becomes well known and not as underground, something else pops up. There’s always an alternative and there’s always a new place to go and party with the Berliners, expats or others from the scene. We laugh about those complaining that it was better ten years ago but she correctly points out that you could put that sentence on a t-shirt.
It’s apparent that change and betterment are core values to her, shown most publicly when she organised a Freedom In The Park demonstration in 2011 to raise awareness for human rights – a topic she feels strongly about. Oddly, she faced some backlash about it from people who wanted to leave politics outside the club. She called them out on their naïve idea of music as an escape and cited the importance of its effectiveness in bringing people of all backgrounds together for a single purpose.
Before the interview I’d watched a Slices video from 2011 where she was interviewed by Bill Patrick. In it, they briefly broached the topic of respect for women in the scene, or lack thereof. She feels more and more disillusioned about fair treatment in the scene, particularly when she’s compared to other female artists as opposed to just as and artist. She points out that most would balk if one was to say “you’re my favourite black DJ” or “you’re my favourite Jewish DJ”. The same also goes for ‘female DJ’ nights: If a white promoter were to try arrange a night for only black DJs in Detroit, he would would more than likely get a slap or worse. To compound everything, they also seem to be paid less than their male counterparts and although this is an issue, she feels only talking about won’t help.
She comes across as quite passionate and romantic, the latter of which I timidly mention. She laughs and agrees, saying she’s built a romantic and cosy fantasy world in her head, inspired in part by things she’s watched. She seems well informed on current affairs and tells me that she’s currently watching a lot of documentaries about Iran, Israel and the Middle East – particularly about the deep history of Iran, the Shah, it’s external influences and economics. We finish up by chatting about her future and what she has in store for 2016. Alongside her new material and live show, she hints at the possibility of starting her other solo project The Waves again.
Maayan is set to play for White Nights at Arena Club on November 21st. Also set to play on the night are Youandewan, Seuil, Rebekah Aff and Harry Leath. You can check out the article on it here.
You can find all the info for the event on the Resident Advisor event page, from the Facebook event page or from the article here.
Photo credits go to Harry Leath at WN Photography who has kindly provided us with exclusive shots. Follow Harry on Instagram.